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The mystery of why Aaron Hernandez went ballistic is solved. He felt he was being “disrespected” after a guy spilled a drink on him. Decided to shoot the guy full of bullet holes. Now he’ll spend life in prison.

“Disrespected.” This is the exact street lingo I use in the book to explain the origin of most violent assaults and homicides. Contrary to popular opinion most violence doesn’t involve attacks for money. It starts with an argument. A disagreement. One person feels slighted, put upon, or in today’s terms “disrespected.” The argument turns into a physical confrontation. The confrontation escalates to aggravated assault or homicide.

As preppers we should know a thing or two about being disrespected. Act like a gentleman. Don’t be disrespecting others. For those with combat training or carrying a concealed weapon, it’s especially important to avoid needless conflict.

Go out of your way to accommodate the other guy. Can you easily “win” the confrontation? Yes. Can you wind up in prison if you “win”? Yes.

Don’t be hyper vigilant about protecting your “rights.” If a moron tries to cut you off in traffic, let him in. Be happy. Don’t give the idiot the finger.

Now we won’t relinquish all our legitimate rights to somebody intent on violating them. If somebody breaks in my house and threatens my family then shooting them in the face is a great option. But don’t get all bent out of shape over somebody infringing some tiny thing. It’s not worth the possible consequences.

I know. You hate bullies. You want to stand up for what’s right and tell some moron loud mouth off. It’s just not worth it. Too many unbalanced people in the world. Can’t beat them all up, tell them all off, or shoot them all. Don’t create your own problems.

Why do so many street toughs take being “disrespected” so aggressively? It’s their ego. In their eyes, their street reputation is the thing they value. They don’t usually have much else going positive for them in their life. The words of a stranger affects them.

On the other side of the coin, you’re much less likely to get drawn into a conflict like this if you have a sense of tranquility and peace in your life. The words of some idiot won’t affect you as deeply. Strive to build this inner peace.

One of the prepper blogs I always visit is The Apartment Prepper. Carr always has great insight combined with great writing. She posted an experience witnessing mild road rage. Many people have never experienced a violent encounter and have little idea what to expect in one. That’s a good thing! If you can live your life in peace, surrounded by tranquil surroundings, that’s the best life. It means you’ve made good decisions. The lower level of stress will give you a longer and happier life.

In another post, I wrote about sociopaths and psychotics. These people can be deadly by nature. Most often hostility happens to otherwise normal people. They literally go out of their mind with rage. One term for this is called “Emotional Hijacking.” The article I link to explains it far better than I ever could, but in short, the rational part of the brain stops functioning as rage takes over.

To see what an emotional hijacking looks like watch this video of road rage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEEirHFbfdg
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Too many survivalist or prepper blogs divvy up the world into “us” versus “them,” almost like the situation in the smash hit TV show Lost where there are “the others.” In the real world, violence can overtake people just like us or people we know or work with. In the video, the man is a decorated Marine. He’s an ordinary guy who had a really bad day.

No doubt this video will haunt him, but he was lucky. What if the other driver had gotten out of the car and the Marine had killed him? The video would have sent him to prison for most of his life. The guy who stayed in his locked car responded very well to defuse the situation as best he could.

This is a terrifying situation to be in: You’re being confronted by a highly aggressive, young, physically fit attacker, who in this case has hand-to-hand combat training. Put yourself in the position of the driver. What would you have done? How would you have felt? What actions would you have taken?

For me, the scariest part of the video is when the attacker walks away. It could be the calm before the storm. Could he be going for a gun or a weapon to smash in the window?

In this situation, besides the highly-intelligent move to stay in the locked car, remember the option to drive away as you seek help. After an accident, if your car functions, you can put it in reverse and move back just enough to allow you to turn out and exit if necessary. If fleeing for your life, you can ram the other vehicle to make clearance if you’re otherwise hemmed in. The downside: Once you ram an aggressor’s vehicle, he’ll go completely bonkers.

Once a certain point is reached, you can’t reason with somebody in a state of emotional hijacking. But, if you can verbally defuse the situation before that point is reached, that’s the nicest outcome. Being able to control your own emotions in a highly stressful situation and being able to read and respond appropriately to the emotions of others is called “emotional intelligence.”

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For those looking for another physical fitness test, here is a link to the Marine test.

In the book, I talked quite a bit about selecting a handgun that fits the shooter and how this affects accuracy. I didn’t delve into rifle marksmanship much. But the same concept applies. A proper fitting weapon is important.

For rifles, the key measurement is length of pull. I was always taught you should be able to place the butt of your rifle in the crook in your arm and comfortably reach the trigger. The length from the back of the butt to the trigger is length of pull.

For average size folks, most rifles will fit reasonably well. Professional snipers and target marksmen will have their weapons custom fit to them. If you’re tall, you might need to have your stock lengthened to achieve your best marksmanship.

If you’re shorter than average, you’ll benefit from measuring how much your rifle should be shortened and shortening the stock. If you’re teaching youngsters to shoot, you should select a weapon that has a short length of pull. If you want them to be great shots, you should adjust the stock as necessary as they grow.

For shooting from the standing position, the best shooting is achieved if you’re able to support your arm on your body. If a shorter shooter has a weapon with too long a length of pull, that becomes impossible as the supporting arm is moved away from the body when the rifle is held naturally. That’s not such a problem for shotgunning or fast rifle shooting, but for precision rifle work, it’s unsteady.

Some preppers like to focus on equipment and others like to build skills and work on personal development. In many areas, the two are related. You should modify your equipment to suit you. That will make you the most effective you can be.

When selecting a rifle for a new shooter, go with the common 22 LR. It has little recoil and most of them have a reasonable weight. Those are other important factors in selecting a rifle for a new shooter.

Other than length of pull, much of what I wrote about pistols applies. Two other things you need on a good rifle are good sights (or a good scope) and a good trigger. If you have poor sights or a poor trigger, it’s much more difficult to shoot well. If you have an accurate gun that fits you well and has good sights and a good trigger, you’ll shoot well.

If you have the money and the time to shoot it a great deal and you want to be a great shot, I highly recommend you purchase a super accurate 22 LR for practice. At 50 yards, groups should be well under a half an inch from a rested position.

The difficulty with top-of-the-line is that we can’t all afford it. Many of us will need to settle for “good enough.”

In the day, a common prepper rifle was the Ruger Mini 14. By rifleman standards this is kind of a crummy rifle. It has a super light barrel which wobbles like a spaghetti noodle when fired. The barrels would heat up after only a few shots and accuracy would deteriorate more. Toss in a slippery plastic butt cap and a crummy front sight, and there was a lot to dislike. But the price offset that. If all you needed was a reliable magazine fed rifle to deter a dozen mutant zombie bikers at fifty yards during a WROL, the Mini 14 could work nicely.

In the past, another advantage to the Mini 14 was its caliber. The 223 Remington was relatively inexpensive for a centerfire rifle. It had little recoil and so is a great caliber to introduce shooters to centerfire rifle shooting. It’s a good step up from the 22 LR. From a pure marksmanship point, a quality and accurate bolt action 223 would be nicer.

Lesson: When purchasing prepping supplies, if you’re on a tight budget, ask yourself what you consider to be “top-of-the-line” and what you think is “good enough.”

Charlie Palmer, Author The Prepper Next Door

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Here’s a good article about fitting weapons to smaller shooters by Massad Ayoob

In the book, I wrote quite a bit about carbon monoxide. Northerners know you shouldn’t let a snowfall cover up the exhaust pipe of a stuck car. Otherwise carbon monoxide can backup into the vehicle. This is winter survival 101 when stranded in your vehicle.

We’ll classify this under there are always different ways to die: A reality TV star died when his vehicle’s exhaust pipe became submerged in mud while he was offroading. This is the first I’ve ever heard of such a freak accident involving mud and CO.

Here’s a good Youtube video about how burglars can use stiff wire to open overhead garage doors. If you’re going to be away from home for a while, the best solution is to turn off your garage door opener and then secure the door above the rollers with vice grips or a long padlock. If necessary drill a hole above a roller for the lock. For day-to-day, it’s too much hassle to constantly remove a padlock or vice grips.

There are other solutions to this, like installing a small sheet of metal in front of the traveller. The metal sheet deflects any wire coming toward it, protecting the traveller. Here’s another video discussion of the same problem recommending not having a weight or handle attached to the cord attached to the door release because burglars might go fishing for the cord’s handle.

Here’s an interesting episode of road rage. Guy follows some kids home and punches one. Two kids attack him or defend themselves, depending on how you see it. Wife gets guy’s gun and gives it to him.

Because some people can’t control their emotions, especially their temper, they shouldn’t carry guns. It doesn’t matter how well they shoot. Here’s a story about road rage.

This fellow had a degree in electrical engineering, was a world-class fencer, driving a BMW, and was a really good shot. In the end, it appears, he couldn’t control his temper and will probably be convicted and go to prison for many decades for shooting another driver. Intelligence and skill mean nothing if you can’t control your emotions adequately.

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Dan at thedailyprep.com has a post about urban homesteading. As preppers, most of us aren’t going to move out into the boonies. There is a link to a youtube video about a family of urban homesteaders that were featured on Doomsday Preppers.

The same family was featured here (which I liked more than their segment on Doomsday Preppers).

Many communities provide information for those who want to learn about growing food in urban or suburban environments. This link is from seattle.gov. There is a link their to a short pdf “Growing Food In the City.”

While I support concealed carry for defense (a topic I discuss at length in The Prepper Next Door), I’m not a fan of daily open carry, wearing your pistol so that other people see it. No doubt this deters most criminals. The average mugger will avoid a citizen he knows to be armed. There are two major downsides. One is that openly carrying a gun alerts the most violent criminals to the fact that you’re armed. If they really want something from you, they probably won’t take any chances. They’ll just shoot you.

The other problem is that openly carrying can take away your options. If a robber sees a police car in front of a store, he’s unlikely to continue his quest to hold up the joint. But if two armed robbers enter a shop with shotguns and one sees your pistol just as you see them raise shotguns, you’ve lost the option of trying to wait out the situation while having a concealed weapon that you could use.

Do you really want to be forced to draw and face two guys armed with shotguns at point blank range? Do you want to surrender your firearm to them? Having the firearm visible took away your best option of just playing it cool and waiting. Most armed robbers don’t pat down bystanders looking for weapons. Most robberies don’t turn into shootouts.

I understand that some people like open pistol carry to make a political statement, but I personally feel the urban prepper concerned with personal defense who chooses to carry a pistol should favor concealed carry.

Road Rage

A point I made in the book is that youtube allows citizens to see how real-world assaults occur, because we have access to cell phone video and surveillance video of these events. I stumbled upon this video the other day.

I don’t know what the conflict was all about, but it appeared to be some typical road rage incident. Fender bender, everybody upset. Contrary to what the commentators were saying, if you watch carefully, you’ll see a guy who stayed immensely cool while somebody else kept trying to hit him. His hands were perfectly positioned to defend himself. He moved side to side. When he could, he moved away with his hands up, only lowering them when he was out of range. It appears not one of the punches thrown had any impact whatsoever. Most impressively, he responded with no counter aggression.

Here’s a very good video by Bear Grylls about defending yourself against road rage. I really liked the comment somebody posted about VISIBLY using your cell phone to dial 911 if conditions have escalated. You’d be surprised how many tough guys chill when they know the police are about to show up. Their main goal becomes getting away quickly, before they’re arrested.

purgatoryironworks (on youtube.com) has a nice two-part video about building your own brake drum forge. Blacksmithing probably isn’t something those of us in the city can do without upsetting our neighbors, but it looks fun.)

I came across a nice list of things to consider stockpiling on preppingonabudget.com. When I started promoting my new book, I discovered many great survival-prepping blogs that are off the beaten path.